I recently had a tricky situation trying to run ASP.NET 2.0 on a Windows 2000 server and ran into the following error: Failed to map the path '/YourApplication/App_GlobalResources'.

I struggled with this for a while so thought I'd post the solution that worked for me here. I spent hours searching the groups but mostly found unanswered posts. A couple did hint that the nature of the problem lies in the permissions of the ASP.NET user account. Eventually I turned to the big brains at Microsoft Support - here's what we came up with.

First step was to delete the ASPNET user account and then run the aspnet_regiis utility in the framework folder:

c:\WINNT\Microsoft.NET\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis -i

This will re-register ASP.NET with IIS and re-create the ASPNET account.

Next you need to give permissions to the (nicely refreshed) ASPNET user account to access this folder with Modify permissions:

Yes. I just checked it again to make sure that I did propagate the permissions for all files and folders. Still not working. I should mention that I am getting this error on my development machine which has an os of xp sp 2. Once I have it working, I plan to deploy it to win 2003 server. I am assuming that I will have the same problem there.

Next I'd use regmon and filemon (available free from http://www.sysinternals.com/) to see if the ASPNET account is being denied access to a file or registry resource.

They're pretty easy to use - just launch the program, set the include filter to "*aspnet*" (without the quotes) and you're away monitoring file/registry access. Now simply request your web page generating the error. You may want to restart IIS to ensure the appdomain starts afresh for this.

Josh

Posted by
Scott
@
23 Feb 2006
12:34 PM
Thanks Josh. I'll give it a try and let you know how I make out.

Same here. Regmon was able to locate the problem folder for me. Thanks for the help!

Scott

Posted by
Nina Meiers
@
14 Mar 2006
4:50 AM
Thanks for this - It was clear, I had the second issue and resolved it and was able to get aspnet 2 working on my server, after trying unsuccessfully for some time. I guess I had to wait until someone found the answer to this very common issue.

Nina Meiers

Posted by
Flu
@
20 Mar 2006
4:38 AM
I just gave the ASP.NET user full access to "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users.WINNT\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys" without deleting the account or doing anything else and it worked!

Posted by
Paul P
@
06 Oct 2006
9:06 AM
I had this problem trying to go to parent paths using VS2005, I gave ASPNET permission without joy. I had opened the web project via the file system ie project in solution explorer looked like c:\... I removed the project and added it via the web ie it looked like http:\\localhost... and that seemed to fix it (I hate dynamic ports aswell so that was a bonus)

Fill your boots Chris but I'm not sure that many people will read that far down the comments. Why not try one of the forums on msdn or gotdotnet.com?

Posted by
Ryan S
@
11 Jan 2007
9:52 AM
Nothing has worked so far. First off, there is not a 'C:\Documents and Settings\All Users.WINNT\' directory on my computer, rather it has only the 'All Users' folder (as in it lacks the .WINNT extension). I am unsure as to whether this effects things or not... I'm running on server 2000 and using IIS 5 if it's any help.

Anyhow, I've followed all the steps suggested to no avail. When I ran filemon, I noticed that the aspnet_wp.exe file kept trying to access files and folders in my website's directory. The only two files that VS 2005 created were the default.aspx and Web.config (and an empty App_Data folder). At any rate, in every case in regmon where 'MachineKey' shows up the result is 'NOT FOUND'. I guess this means that something is lacking permissions (even though it feels like I've ASPNET user permissions to half the computer now). Any clues as to what the NOT FOUND means would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, I was also hoping someone could clarify how to grant permissions via regedit? (look at Weiping Le's post)

In the folder --> C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys... I found a key that was 0 KBytes, (bc0b10bc77567c10e98669fe434e5488_f8157126-3cd0-462b-838b-a193b791f076), be sure to show the details of the folder so you could see these key details.

Once I saw that this key had 0 KBytes, I simply deleted it (which is then recreated when accessing the website), AND IT WORKED!!! Lord ol'mighty, it took me a week of constant searching to finally get this to work!!!

As I mentioned, I tried all of the other suggested solutions above, so the ultimate solution may be a combination of the above solutions as well as deleting the key that has 0 KBytes.

Hope this post saves someone some grief. :o)

Jason Z

Posted by
BlackLocist
@
15 Mar 2007
7:50 AM
Also use RegMon to check if aspnet_wp.exe is being denied any registry. Add permissions and viola! worked for me. :)

Posted by
Yoshi
@
21 Mar 2007
1:09 PM
What worked for me is that you have to click the Security Tab under the Properties of the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA and add the ASP.NET account with full control. I was just changing the permissions under the Sharing tab. Hope this helps someone else!!

Thanks to allAll I did is justgo to registry regedt32.exe for win2000 give ASPNET account full access to:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{70B51430-B6CA-11D0-B9B9-00A0C922E750}

Thanks for the post it WORKS!!!!!!!!!!

Mark

Posted by
Christophe
@
12 Jun 2007
10:42 AM
Thanks Jason Z. I also had a key in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys folder that had 0 bytes, deleted it, and it works!

Posted by
Rob Smith
@
27 Jun 2007
7:33 AM
I found an even easier solution...

When i develop web sites for top level domain names (something.com), I usually set my IIS home directory to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\sitename so that way I can link on the site to /default.aspx and have it operate the same way when im developing and when its deployed. Otherwise, it would be /sitename/default.aspx locally and /default.aspx deployed.

With that said, when I changed my home directory of IIS back to c:\inetpub\wwwroot\, I had a trailing slash like you see in this sentence. I removed the trailing slash which made it c:\inetpub\wwwroot and it fixed it.

Posted by
marcemarc
@
06 Jul 2007
2:15 AM
Last day at work, deploying the big signed off project to the live webserver, and got this error; mightly stressful, thanks for all the advice above. I gave the ASP.Net account full permissions to the registry setting:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{70B51430-B6CA-11D0-B9B9-00A0C922E750}andmodify permissions to c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\microsoft\crypto\RSA

You have to make sure that you have 'show hidden files and folders turned on', and 'hide protected operating system files turned off', to be able to find the folder (this is in tools - folder options - view) , and you need to do start run regedt32 rather than regedit if you want to be able to set permissions on registry keys. (All obvious I know but when the pressure is on :-)

Posted by
Mir Ghouse
@
18 Jul 2007
6:01 AM
I have an other problem now. when i deploy my websites on other server or even my own pc's vitual directory and open it in web browers it gives this error.

please help me

Compiler Error Message: BC30456: 'Title' is not a member of 'ASP.default_login_aspx'.

Posted by
RAlladi
@
14 Aug 2007
1:52 PM
For me too, giving permission to ASPNET user on the HKCR\Interface\{70B51430-B6CA-11D0-B9B9-00A0C922E750} made it work. I found it with regmon following the suggestions here. Thanks a million! (This is on XP Pro SP2).

FWIW, The machine was locked down pretty heavy before installing .NET 2.0. This was a Windows 2000 machine running .NET v1.1 for a very long time.

Posted by
Sunny
@
05 Sep 2007
12:22 AM
Hey guys.. u wud just be amazed with my reason for this problem I faced. May be u'll feel i m dumbass. but i just wanted to share reason with you. I created a directory under my app root. and i was getting this error on referencing that. i spent hours on reading posts. but at end what did i see you know? i had a virtual directory of that name referencing other computer.(on iis that virdir was showing error).

just wanted to add my 20 cents worth, i am using XP and have tried all of the suggestions above. although i am sure they all contributed, the one i thought wouldnt help at all (submitted by Rob Smith) was the winner....

Posted by
Craig Bruce
@
02 Apr 2008
4:30 PM
if you are using Vista and have this problem, RUN VS 2005/2008 AS ADMINISTRATOR and it will work.

Posted by
Oscar
@
24 Apr 2008
3:59 PM
Hello, thank you very much for your post, after running regmon I found out the same access problem problem to the HKCR Interface CLSID , double clicked on that record, assigned the ASPNET user the permits and magically the site worked.

Giving a permission to this folder works for me:'C:\Documents and Settings\All Users.WINNT\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys'

Can anyone explain what is relation of this folder and the error "Failed to map the path '/YourApplication/App_GlobalResources'."?

Posted by
karlo
@
25 Jun 2008
11:51 AM
hello, I speak english a little, wherever, I had the same error for a week more than less, I resolve the problem with the solution form marcemarc, editing permissions in the regedit, but I have a question, why happened it? if any can resolve mi question please writeme , mi mail is f_raptor(arroba)hotmail.com, thanks

Posted by
Mitch B
@
28 Jan 2009
9:55 AM
I cannot get this going for the life of me. Running on server 03 SP1. I have remade user, basically tried everything listed (including permissions). Regmon is showing a lot of 'NOT FOUND'. Anyone have some tips?

Posted by
ISGIAdam
@
09 Feb 2009
10:44 AM
I also have SP3 and have tried everything above and nothing is working. I am seeing a lot of 'NOT FOUND' entries too. Any ideas?

Posted by
Miel Hostens
@
06 Jun 2009
8:11 AM
I used next codeServer.MapPath("/App_Data/***.mdb")Got the same error as above, tried everything, nothing worked,Until...Server.MapPath("App_Data/***.mdb"), removed one / and this did it

Posted by
casino de jeux online
@
20 Jan 2010
4:45 AM
ASP.NET is a technology for creating dynamic Web applications. ASP.NET pages (Web Forms) are compiled and allow you to build powerful forms-based Web pages. When building these pages, you can use ASP.NET user controls to create common UI elements and program them for common tasks.

Posted by
Tom
@
28 Jan 2010
2:13 PM
I added ASPNET as Full Control on that MachineKeys directory, gave ASPNET Full Control to the registry key HKCR\Interfaces\{70B51430-B6CA-11D0-B9B9-00A0C922E750}, even put ASPNET in the Administrators local group for this computer and still no luck - still has an exception ("Failed to map the path '/'.") when I debug my project on string path = Server.MapPath{@"/");.

Posted by
Tom
@
28 Jan 2010
2:15 PM
I meant string path = Server.MapPath(@"/");was the line I was using.

Whatever gets it done, I guess... This worked without having to add any ASPNET permissions - I took them away from the MachineKeys folder and registry key to avoid having to explain it to the security folks... especially since it didn't need it in the end, anyway.

In the folder --> C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys... I found a key that was 0 KBytes, (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx).

I simply deleted it (which is then recreated when accessing the website), AND IT WORKED!!!

As I mentioned, I tried all of the other suggested solutions above, so the ultimate solution may be a combination of the above solutions as well as deleting the key that has 0 KBytes.